1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a load driving apparatus and a driving method thereof, and more particularly, to a load driving apparatus with a charge sharing mechanism and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
The technique of displaying images with a pixel array has become very common, and which is usually adopted by today's display panel apparatuses. Generally, a pixel array is driven to display an image by sequentially selecting desired pixels from the pixel array in two array directions and by using a source driver and a gate driver and then inputting corresponding pixel data to these selected pixels. In other words, the driving mechanism adopted by the source driver and the gate driver plays a very important role in the performance of a display panel apparatus.
Taking the source driver in a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel as an example, the source driver drives the pixel array by outputting driving signals (converted from image data) to corresponding pixels respectively through different driving channels. However, in a LCD panel, the polarities of the driving signals received by the pixels have to be periodically inverted in order to avoid liquid crystal polarization. Thus, the voltage amplitudes of the driving signals cause the source driver to consume more power to drive the pixel array.
The charge sharing technique is to couple different driving channels with each other so that the voltage levels on these driving channels are regulated to a common voltage level before the driving signals are output, and accordingly the power consumed by the load driving apparatus for changing the driving voltages output by different driving channels when the driving signals are output is reduced. Thereby, how to effectively apply the charge sharing concept to a load driving apparatus has become a major subject in today's design of load driving apparatuses.